Le Nil Elephant

Leonetto Cappiello, often called the Father of the Modern Poster, used his best artistic talents in portraying the beautiful elephant that is central to this poster. The actual product being promoted is the cigarette paper made by the Le Nil Company. The elephant is their corporate logo and Cappiello uses a mixture of fine artwork and color blending to create this detailed image. In our era, this poster is especially attractive because of its desirable horizontal format. Joseph Bardou created a cigarette paper in 1845 titled J.B. which was quickly renamed to JOB. In the 1870’s Bardou’s cigarette paper began regularly shipping a large portion of supply to Egypt. With this large customer base, JOB renamed itself to Le Nil, after the Nile River and began using marketing tools that integrated iconic associations of Egyptian culture such as pyramids, palm trees and as seen in this poster, an elephant. Le Nil no longer exists as a company today. Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942) was an